Monday, January 25, 2010

You find elitism everywhere in WoW and its related communities. You see it in everything from using GearScore as a determination of skill, to posting damage meters as a way of stroking one's ego. It seems to be a phenomenon that won't go away.

The arguing in Trade chat never ends. One person posts a question or a comment. Another responds with an elitist (unhelpful, by the way) response. Followed by several supporters from both sides of the coin.

The same happens on forums or blog sites, such as WoW.com. Someone posts a reasonable article. Then at least one elitist person responds with an attack against all noobs. That's followed by several people supporting or attacking the elitist.

Why do people even try to reason with elitists? I admit, I often get suckered into reading the debates. There's something enjoyably masochistic about putting myself through it. I suppose it's like watching reality TV -- the shock value when you think, "I can't believe he just said that!" Yet afterward you ask yourself why you even watched.

But honestly, why do people even bother trying to reason with them? Has an elitist ever been convinced to recant their statements?

On WoW.com today there was an Arcane Brilliance article about DPS meters and how people misuse them. One reader wrote a typical elitist response -- anyone who complains about DPS meters is the person with low DPS who is being carried by the others. This elicited pages and pages of responses, attacking his point of view. The elitist never posted again, indicating that he had read all the responses and had recognized the err of his ways. He either probably never looked back at the post, or maybe he read all the responses, enjoying how much he had riled things up.

Why do we do it? We know we're not going to get anywhere with them, so why try? Why not just ignore their statements?

When someone accuses another of being "fail" because his gear score is in the 3000s, why does that person feel the need to defend himself by explaining that the toon is not his main, or that he has taken 3 months off from the game, or that he only has 2 hours of play time per week, etc?

I experience this first hand from both sides. My Priest is one of the best geared on the server. Currently, her gear score is 5600 or so. I don't brag about it. It's just a sign that I have a lot of time to play and that I'm lucky enough to be in a 25-man raiding guild and I've won some very good drops. I've received high praise for my "leet-ness" while on my Priest.

Meanwhile, my Moonkin's gear score is still in the 3000s. I've been criticised and ridiculed for having such a low gear score and "low" dps. The level of her gear is much lower than that of my priest because (a) she is not my main and so I spend very little time on her, (b) she has no raiding opportunities in the guild she's in (and even if she had, I wouldn't have the time).

But, I'm the same player behind both toons. I am not a fail player. And, even if I didn't have the highly geared priest, and only had time to play the Moonkin, I'd still be the same player. High gear scores are mostly just a sign of time spent playing the game. They're not necessarily indicative of a person's skill, and definitely they're not indicative of a person's worth!

In the end, the elitists are people who judge others' worth on their gear and their knowledge of the game. Reasonable people recognize this as the crap that it is. So, why do they (we?) let them get to them, making them defend the not-so-elite?

Is it important to argue with someone who makes outlandish remarks so that either (a) they will change their opinions, or (b) others will not be fooled into agreeing with them?

Friday, January 22, 2010

Am I a Good Progression Raider?I mentioned in my last post that our 10-man raid leader raged in vent recently. Well, at the same time, our guild officers have been expressing concern over our progression. We're still the #3 alliance guild on our server, based on 25-man progression, so I'm not sure concern is warranted, but...the fact that they're concerned has made me think. Am I a good progression raider?

Here's what I mean by that: As I said, we're #3 for alliance 25-man progression on our server. However, the other two guilds are much quicker to get down new content. The gap between us is noticeable, especially as each week goes by. I spoke to this in a previous post where I pondered why that was the case. Gear definitely helps, but I'm leaning toward believing it's skill that makes the difference in the end.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not wallowing in self criticism and pity. I know I am a good healer. But, I'm noticing that I'm not as quick to pick up strategies as my fellow raiders. I watch the videos, I read the strategy guides. But when I get to the encounter, I have a hard time executing the strategies -- at first.

Some of my fellow raiders are able to pick up immediately on everything that's going on around them. They see things flying in the air (e.g., light and dark orbs in the Twin Val'Kyr encounter, Malleable Goo in the Professor Putricide encounter, etc.). I am able to see and avoid these things eventually. But it takes me many times going through the encounter before I get to the point that I'm able to understand and react to it all. Reading and watching videos doesn't help. It's actual practice that works for me. Yes, I realize that that's pretty much true for everyone (except those incredible gifted players who get everything on the first try). But, my point is that I notice I need more practice than most of my fellow raiders.

They also seem to recognize each other in the midst of all the chaos. I honestly can't tell the difference between any toons except for shape-shifted druids. For example, I can distinguish Trees from the other toons around me. Paladins, not so much. And yet, various people say, "stand on me", "come to me", "move away from me". I recognize the voice, but unless you're a Tree or you have a distinguishing mark on your head, I honestly don't know where the frick you are. And yet others seem to see this quite easily.

I'll stop to remind myself that I have no doubt that once I have had a chance to experience an encounter enough times, I am excellent at executing strategy. I know I'm a good healer and I know I'm a good raider. I recognize that there are many people that, no matter how much they experience an encounter, they're just not good at it. I don't fall into that category.

With that in mind, I get back to my original question. Am I a good progression raider? When a progression guild, focused on keeping a top spot, goes into new content, they want to master it quickly and be the first to kill a new boss. In order to do this they need a team of quick learners. This is especially important with the current system of limiting the number of attempts you have each week. The #1 guild on our server killed Professor Putricide the first week, despite the 10 attempts limit. It's now the third week and we still haven't gotten him down. I'm confident we'll get him soon, which speaks to the overall skill of the members of my guild.

I know that my mistakes contribute to our lack of quick progress. Note, I said "contribute"; I do not take full blame. I recognize that I'm not the only one in the guild that is still having problems with strategy execution. Clearly, if I were the only person not mastering the strategy, we'd be fine.

I'm not sure what the outcome of all of this analysis is. I do recognize and accept I'm not as quick as many of my guild mates. For heaven's sake, I'm old enough to be the mother of most of them! I might not naturally have the quick reflexes they do, and it might also be due to the age difference. I do eventually pick up strategies and become excellent at them. But, would my guild progress faster if someone else had my spot (and the spot of the other raiders in my same situation) while going through progression content?

ICC 25 (Priest)With all that said, last night was fun. We one-shotted both Festergut and Rotface and skipped Professor in favor of seeing new content. After 5 or 6 wipes we got the Princes down. That was a fun encounter. I definitely could improve my performance on it, but by the time we did our final attempt, I felt that I was getting good at it.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Another busy week at work, along with a few sick days, so I haven't had much time to write.

Shaman LevelingI've leveled my shaman quite a bit -- she's now 63. Almost all of the XP has come from healing instances. Pretty much the only time I've actually quested on her has been while sitting out on raids. I can't get committed to an instance, since I can be called to join the raid at any moment. I'm not complaining, though. I'm sure when I raise another toon that is pure DPS, I'll do more quests than instances. So, I'm enjoying this opportunity to sail through the leveling process.

One observation about DK tanks in the early 60s: Some are good, but most are very very bad. At least most of the ones I've experienced. No situational awareness, no line of sight pulling, no understanding of mana=heals. I'll break each one of these down a little:

No situational awareness: Many of the DK tanks I've encountered stand in fire, don't pay attention to pats, and generally don't pay attention to their surroundings. Anyone with a DK has to have a lvl 80 somewhere. So, it's not that they're completely new to the game. Perhaps they're new to tanking? Maybe they're used to barging on in and surviving pretty much any group of mobs they encounter while questing? Or maybe heroic farming has made people think that all content can just be steam-rolled. If we are in heirloom gear, yes we have an advantage in the leveling instances. But, no matter how geared you are, you can't live through a 12 mob pile up. I'm a good healer, but I can't heal that.

No line of sight pulling: This really seems to be limited to DKs. All other tanks I've encountered know the concept and use it when needed. Perhaps it's because they have spent so many more levels in instances, since DKs skip all the pre-55 instances. Or maybe it's just that they lack basic tanking skills, or even worse, don't care. Steam rolling again...easy to do in heroics with epic gear on. Not so easy to do in lower level instances, even in heirloom gear.

No understanding of mana=healing: A particularly bad DK tank said one of the most surprising things to me. After three large unwieldy pulls, I had to stop for mana. I said this in party chat. As I sat down to drink, I watched as the tank and the rogue sauntered off to the next mobs. Every healer has gone through this decision making process before -- do I run up and do my best with the very little mana I have? Or do I just let them die? I chose the former...it was a mistake. We all died. While running back, I reminded the DK that I had said I needed mana. He didn't respond. Then...next couple encounters were equally mana intensive as the previous ones. I indicated in party chat that I needed to get mana back. Once again, he and the rogue went bravely forward to engage the next mobs. This time I let them die. The tank started calling me obscenities for not healing him. I reminded him that I had said I needed mana. His response was shocking. He said, "So what? There's nothing I can do to help you get mana. How the *%*& am I responsible for that?" How the heck did this guy get to level 80 on another toon without understanding that when the healer says she needs mana, that means everyone needs to sit tight while she drinks up?

Honestly, I can't wait to hit max level so I won't have to deal with so many idiotic death knights!

ICC 25 (Priest)On Tuesday night we went right into Icecrown to get to the new content. Unfortunately, it seemed that everyone in the WoW universe had the same idea -- the lag was horrific. We could barely cast spells or move. After we killed Saurfang, we decided to call it a night. There was no way we could do the harder encounters with so much lag.

ICC 10 (Priest)We made it to Professor Putricide last week, but we used up all 10 attempts without getting him down. We went back again on Tuesday night. We one shotted everything up to and including Festergut. We called it a night at that point then returned last night. For the life of us, we couldn't get Rotface down. It was very frustrating. After a few hours of attempts, we finally decided to get a peek at the new content. That's some hard stuff! We died within seconds of starting the Princes encounter. After three wipes, we decided to leave Icecrown.

OS 10 (Priest and Mage)In the past week I've gotten the "...of the Nightfall" title on both my mage and my priest. My mage even won the roll on the drake. Pretty cool stuff.

Raid Leader CrazinessSo, our 10-man raid leader has been close to intolerable lately. He does two things that really annoy the crap out of me.

Whenever he's out of mana or dead, he'll declare a wipe. If it's early on in the encounter, I can see how his death might mean a wipe. But, if it's close to over, I might be able to handle the healing to the end. He seems to dismiss my healing skills. He gives the impression that without him healing, we're doomed to failure. That's annoying, but it's even more offensive.

He has been going into rages over mistakes we make. It's one thing to be disappointed when we wipe. A good leader brushes it off and provides contstructive criticism and advice on how to do better the next time. He tries to do this, but he fails. Instead, he screams into the microphone at us. Then, when he regains his composure, he won't analyze what has gone wrong. If we step in to do so, he shushes us. I don't know what his deal is, but it's getting very annoying. I'm playing to have fun. Not to be screamed at by someone.

He's a great guy normally. I really like him a lot. He's very knowledgable and is able to orchestrate strategies very well. But, he seriously needs to work on the two points I made above. I mean, last night people were laughing at him, comparing him to the "More dots!!!" and "Minus 50 dkp!!!!!" guy.

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Since I last wrote I've been either on vacation or extremely busy at work. But, I've had a lot of fun both in and out of WoW, so I'm happy. As for the WoW stuff...

ICC 25 (Priest)The second wing of Icecrown, the Plagueworks, has opened. Last week we got down Rotface with no problem, but were having trouble with Festergut. We finally killed him on Sunday by the skin of our teeth. It was a very very close kill.

We moved on to Professor Putricide and did a few of our 10 attempts then called it a night. Hopefully we'll get a few more attempts in this week.

ICC 10 (Priest)The progress of the 10-man group was the opposite of our 25-man one. We had no troubles getting Festergut down, but Rotface was a big problem. We finally got him down last night, so we were able to get our first attempts in on Professor last night.

Healing MetersIn the last week I've been noticing a something very disconcerting. My numbers on the healing meters have dropped tremendously, compared to my fellow healers. I don't put too much stock in the meters, as the true gauge of effectiveness is whether or not we succeeded in the encounter with minimal deaths. But, the significant drop in my numbers has concerned me.

What's going on? Am I being slower to react? Are the other healers beating me to targets, leaving me with less to heal? Am I not healing efficiently lately?

I'm running out of mana occasionally, so it's not for a lack of casting.

One change I made recently could be contributing to the problem. I put in a Power Aura setting to indicate to me when Prayer of Mending is off cooldown. I added it because I often try to cast PoM and realize too late that it's still on cooldown. So, I wanted to stop myself from wasting the click. I had hoped it would make me more efficient. It has helped -- I no longer waste the click. But, it's had an unexpected side effect. I end up casting it more often -- every time the cooldown is up. The problem? Sometimes I'm doing so before the previous one has had a time to jump to all of its targets. So, I'm effectively clipping the spell. I'm not a math whiz, so I'm not going to try to put it down with numbers and calculate it all out. I'm just going to try to be more thoughtful about when I actually cast PoM. The signal from Power Aura should only be telling me I can cast it again, not that I should cast it.

I'm also wondering if I overdid the haste on my gear. The other holy priests in my guild who are out-healing me have far less haste than I do and higher spellpower and/or crit. So far in Icecrown I find myself casting instant spells more than anything. I'm not sure how much benefit high haste has when using all instant spells. I focused on haste because I wanted to make Flash Heal / Greater Heal / Prayer of Healing faster. Back in the Ulduar and ToC days I was using Flash Heal a lot to proc Serendipity for GH or PoH. I'm finding I'm using it less and less now since there is so much movement and so much raid damage in ICC. I have very little time or need to build up Serendipity procs. When I'm consciously doing so, it almost seems forced. Like I'm casting Flash Heal on just anybody in order to get Serendipity up. Definitely a waste of mana.

I'll see if I can play around with gems to change things up a bit.

MiscellaneousNot much more to say than that. As usual, there's a lot to say if I post every day. But, when several days go by, the mundane things seem less interesting.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

This past weekend was New Years, so I had time to play in between friends and family time. (ment).

Shaman LevelingAs I posted yesterday, I leveled my Shaman quite a bit lately. This weekend I did a lot of instances with her, both as Elemental and as Resto. Although I mentioned last week that the addition of an extra totem bar is helpful, I'm still finding I have some issues with totem management.

One thing that would make it easier would be to organize totems by the element, not by the spell category. I mean, really, who cares if Stoneclaw is under the Elemental tab? It's more useful for me to know that it is an Earth totem. Organizing them by element would make it much easier to see which choices I have for each category. Hmmm...I wonder if there's an addon for that.

When leveling I go Elemental spec and put down Magma (fire), Stoneskin (earth), Grounding (air) and Healing Stream (water). I've been wondering lately if the Grounding one is a waste of mana though. It's only useful when encountering spellcasters. When I'm fighting melee, it's just a waste of mana. But, Windfury totem is useless to me, since I don't melee. Since they're currently my only air totem options, other than Sentry and Nature Resist, which also have narrow uses, I'm wondering if I should just leave the air totem slot blank while leveling and cast Grounding totem as needed?

Then when I'm in instances (as DPS) I don't put my totems down right next to the battle location. (Should I be placing them closer?) So, Magma totem is a waste, unless the melee comes closer to me. Searing totem is unpredicatble, so it's too risky to put it out (isn't it?) So, should I put down Flametongue to help out with Spell damage? For earth I've been placing Strength of Earth, but it only benefits melee party members. For air I've been placing Windfury, which I think is a no-brainer. Then for water I've been placing Mana Spring.

So...it seems like I pretty much have my sets arranged. But then we hit mobs that inflict diseases or poisons. I'm concerned that I'm wasting mana putting out my regular totems then quickly casting Cleansing Totem. It seems to me that mana regeneration is less important than the quick removal of disease/poison effects. So, what do shamans normally do about this? Do they leave the water spot free then cast the totem that works best for the situation? Or do they cast their standard set then use additional mana to replace the water totem when necessary?

Yeah I know, not big problems in the scheme of things. But, I like efficiency, and I feel I'm not being efficient.

Also, I read on some blog somewhere that while soloing it's a waste of time and mana to put totems down most of the time. I'm not sure if that was written before it was possible to cast all 4 at once or if that's just a general rule that still applies today. Are the totems really helping me out that much against single mobs? I can see that against multiple mobs every little bit helps. But against single mobs are the totems a waste of mana?

On another note, I splurged and bought the mail heirloom chest piece for her. She had been wearing the leather one that was a hand-me-down from my druid. But, since there's nothing else to do with my emblems of triumph, I decided to spend them frivolously. The only real change, other than additional armor, is replacement of spirit with mp5. Mp5 is better for Shamans, so I expect to see improved mana regen. Next up, I might splurge again and get her the mail shoulders for the same benefit, replacing the leather ones her druid sister gave her.

Paladin LevelingI've also been leveling my Paladin lately. There are a few interesting things to note about experiences with her.

Retribution Tanking -- I had been queueing in LFG as DPS, noticing that it's a lack of tanks that causes the long wait. Then in one group I noticed that the tank was an arms or fury warrior, can't remember which, but definitely not prot. He performed fine. Then, when I was in another group the tank (bear) asked if I would tank in his place. He had been tanking all day and wanted a break. I pointed out that I was Ret, but he said I'd do fine and the healer said the same. I've been queueing as Tank or DPS since. And, although I've lost aggro on a few occasions, I'd say I've been tanking succesfully. I'm not sure at what level that will change.

Heirloom Items Snob -- In another group in Scarlet Monastery I ran across a jerk. He was a druid healer and felt it necessary to comment on the cloth heirloom shoulders I was wearing. I explained that I only had one pair of shoulders that I was sharing with all my leveling alts. But he pressed on, stating in a nutshell that I was fail for wearing cloth and not spending the emblems on mail/plate shoulders. At first I tried to make him understand why I made the decision -- I only had enough emblems to buy one item and it made since to choose the lowest common denominator, e.g., the one that any toon could use: cloth. But, he didn't seem to care. He was just a jerk getting his rocks off criticising me for my gear choices. I gave up and put him on ignore. The very first cross-server ignore. The nice thing about the new LFG system is that I'll never have to be in a group with him again!

I pulled her out of her guild. It was one of those guilds that recruit in trade. I joined it several months back just for the heck of it since she is one of my unknown toons. But, on New Year's eve I couldn't take the atmosphere anymore. It was a positive one, don't get me wrong. But so friggin sappy and juvenile that it was hard for me to enjoy it. I don't like being in guilds where everything said in guild chat is a sexual inuendo. But, this was the opposite extreme. Some of the members talked about God and Jesus quite often (I have nothing against Christianity) and most of the members were in junior high and high school. I could be their mother! It just wasn't the right fit for me. So, now I'm guildless. I'm considering putting her into my Priest's guild. But, that would leave only one toon (my warlock) that is completely unknown. I do like to hide every now and then....

Oh...and I've since purchased the mail/plate heirloom chest and shoulders for her. Splurge? Yes, but, at the rate that the emblems of triumph are coming in, what else will I use them for? But please don't tell the jerk druid healer I encountered. I don't want him to get all smug about it. :-)

Old Guild Leader StrangenessSo, my old guild leader is acting strange again. The other day he sent me an in-game mail wishing me a happy Christmas. How nice. Considering we rarely talk any more, I thought it was a nice gesture.

Then out of the blue this weekend he sent me a Whisper saying, "LOL As much as things change, they stay the same." Having no idea what he was referring to, I asked him what he meant. He responded saying that I (me) had once again left a decent guild of fun people to join a raiding one. He, of course, is referring to my recent movement of my mage from one guild to another. Despite knowing I didn't have to explain my actions to him, I responded, saying I only moved guilds to follow two in-game friends. His response was, "If you say so."

Where does this animosity come from? He is so bitter about people having different ideas of what makes the game fun. He continues to like leveling alts and helping people level theirs. He enjoys questing and profession leveling. That's great. I'm happy for him that he continues to find those aspects fun and rewarding. I do too, on a certain level. I'm still leveling toons and I like to help people out when I can. But...and this is a big but...I do love raiding. So, why does he act like it's a negative thing??? He seems to forget the reason I left his guild in the first place was because he raged one night in guild chat after having /gquit a week or so before. I didn't leave to raid. I left to get away from the atmosphere he had created. But, regardless, I enjoy raiding. That's how I want to spend my time in game. I have every right to focus on those areas of the game I find most enjoyable. Ugh! He can be so difficult.

ICC 10 (Priest)Since my regular 10-man team did ToC 10 without me this week (I was too tired to join them), I found another group to go with this past weekend. It was mostly alts from the guild with a couple non-guildies. It was tough, but I can happily say that we cleared it. Woot! I got the Soulcleave Pendant off the last boss. I have to admit I felt a little guilty taking it. The other toons were alts that will most likely never have access to 25-man gear. Whereas, I will be raiding in 25-man so I will have access to better gear. But, on the flipside, I might be asked to sit in future raids, so I never know from week to week if I'll be in or out. Also, there's an argument to be made that it's better that a main gets it because it will help with progression. Anyway...I got it. And I like it. :)

ToGC 25 (Priest)On Sunday we had a big moment in our guild. We one-shotted Heroic 25 Faction Champs!!! We went from constant wipes to one-shotting it. Woo hoo!!!!! How exciting!!!! Twins was another story, but who cares. We got past a big stumbling block.

Success of Other GuildsSo, our success on faction champs made me curious how we stood on wowprogress.com. Our standing has gone up one slot, since we're only the 4th alliance guild on our server that has beat them. That's fun to know. Then, I looked on pugchecker.com to get an idea how many times the top guild on our server has cleared the place. I was surprised to find out they have full cleared 25 ToGC 11 times as of last week. 11 times. I'm not going to do the math, but my guess is that means they've pretty much done it since the beginning.

It made me wonder, how do they do that? We only just got past faction champs and we have gear from 10 and 25-man ICC. We're one of the top guilds with very skilled players.

So what do they have that we don't? Did they go into it with better gear? Possibly, because they cleared 25-man Ulduar several times, including killing Algalon. My guild only did a full clear on 10-man. So perhaps their gear going into ToGC was already better than ours. Well, no perhaps about it, they definitely had better gear. And I'm assuming they had better gear going into Ulduar and even going into Naxx.

But gear can't be the only thing.

Persistence is another factor. Perhaps to maintain their #1 ranking they try for hours and hours on end. There's no telling how many hours they spent going at it. Though, the limit to number of attempts each week does come into play. So, clearly they didn't spend too many hours, though maybe more than we did. We keep our raiding schedule very tight. We only raid 4 hours three times a week.

Skill must be the other factor. But honestly, is the skill difference between us and them so big? Having run with this guild for over a month now, I'm very impressed with the level of skill. But, maybe there are levels of skill within the guild and I'm just not noticing which members are not as skilled as the others. And perhaps the core members of the #1 guild are all on the same skill level?

For those people who read this blog and find it fun to criticize me, please refrain from doing so this time. I'm not obsessed with being the best of the best. I'm very very happy with the guild I'm in and our successes. I don't have any desire to be in the top guild because I know the pressure they're under to maintain that spot. All I'm pointing out is that they have cleared ToGC 25 11 times and we have not even cleared it once. I'm trying to understand what the difference is between us and them. Considering we're the fourth most progressed alliance guild on the server, we clearly know how to get things done.

OK that's it for now. Tonight a new wing of ICC is supposed to be opening. I really hope it's true and that I get a spot in the raid! If not, I'll level my shaman while wishing everyone luck with the new content.

Monday, January 4, 2010

I forgot to do a gear/goal check in December. So, here's two months' worth:

Death Knight

Unholy

72

Druid

Balance/Feral

80

Hunter

BM

71

Mage

Arcane

80

Paladin

Ret

38 (+14)

Priest

Holy/Shadow

80

Rogue

(no talents)

29

Shaman

Ele / Resto

44 (+13)

Warlock

Affliction PvP

80

Warrior

(no talents)

34

Although I gained several levels on my Pally and Shaman, I did so only in the last couple weeks. Thanks to the new LFG system, 99% of their xp has come from instances lately. More on that in my next regular post.Goals

Warlock✔ Level him to 80.✔ Get into at least one raid.✔ Get him to max Tailoring (well, not really achieved, but the carpet mount was the actual goal.✔ Make a carpet mount.

Druid✔ Level her to 80.Get into at least one raid.✔ Dual spec her boomkin/resto. (Though I switched from resto to feral soon afterward.)

Priest✔ Get a little further in Ulduar than I have so far (which is only past the first boss). (So far we got all the way to Yogg.)Get turtle mount.Get Giant Sewer Rat pet.HunterMax out Engineering.

PaladinLevel her to ??. (not sure how high I feel like leveling her).

WarriorI had wanted to get her to exalted with Ironforge for the novelty of getting a ram mount. But now that I created the dwarf pally, there might be no incentive. I didn't really enjoy playing her that much.